Boog Powell hit .297 during the 1970 baseball season. He connected for 156 hits that year including 28 doubles and 35 home runs. Boog drove in 114 runs for the Orioles during the year while also scoring 82 times.

Johnny Bench hit .293 for the Reds in 1970. He collected 177 hits in 158 games including 35 doubles and a league-leading 45 home runs. Bench also paced the NL in RBI with 148 while scoring 98 runs. He also won the Gold Glove in the NL for catchers.

I’m not a huge fan of the Donruss Triple Play brand. Personally, I did not find that the cards were very exciting. And I also thought that the large, shifted frame that held the player’s picture took up too much space and limited the effectiveness of a nice, larger image.

But, this Cal Ripken card from the 1992 set escapes that criticism. This card is sweet!

Have a look:

I love the image that was used of Cal for this set. Not only is the card action packed, but you get a good idea of what is happening. It appears that Rickey Henderson (#24) was either picked off or an attempt to pick him off occurred. Cal’s got the ball in his hand and based on the direction that Henderson slid, he looks like he is headed back to 2B. Either that, or Cal snagged a liner off the hitter’s bat and tried to chase Rickey back to second…

I never collected the Bazooka brand of baseball cards when they were first issued, but I am making up for that 20 years later.

These cards are pretty nice.

And they definitely do not have a lot of the gaudy and over-crowded design elements that many cards of the 1990’s featured.

Instead, this set is sharp and clean. It features a border-less design and a nice nameplate that runs horizontally along the bottom of the card.

This is the Eddie Murray card from the 1994 set:

Pretty nice, huh?

I really like the column of player positions that runs vertically down the right-side of the card. The highlighted position of the player being featured is a very nice touch. I’m going to try to do a quick web search for an NL player to see if his card was missing the ‘DH’ position…

On this day in 1966, Frank Robinson was named as the 1966 AL Most Valuable Player. And it was really not contest – Robinson was the Triple Crown winner as he led the American League is Batting Average, RBI, and Home Runs.

What made this award even more special is that Robinson became the first player to win the MVP in both leagues with this award in 1966.

You see, just 5 seasons prior, in 1961, he won the award with the Cincinnati Reds of the National League.

Both of these guys, in different ways, have cemented themselves in my baseball memory and built images in my head that will last for my lifetime.

Joe Carter hit the home run that all kids dream of as a kid. World Series drama, walk-off game winner, series clincher – You name it! With one swing, Joe Carter cemented himself as a baseball legend who shined the brightest when all eyes were on him.

Cal Ripken built such an incredible baseball resume, and he did it the right way. A consummate professional, Ripken played the game the right way and he did it for the pure love of the sport. A tremendously skilled all-around player, Cal has no weakness on the field, and he took that to his off-the-field persona once he retired from the sport.

Here is a fun 2-sticker lot that I recently picked up of Eddie Murray:

These stickers are much smaller in size than the scans show, they’re probably 2/3 the size of a standard baseball card.

And they’re pretty neat too! Both come from the 1985 Fleer ‘Stars’ sticker set. And I really like the waving flag graphic that runs along the bottom of the sticker.

But, with no team name, player name, player position, text, or Fleer logo on the front of these stickers, it does kind of feel like something is missing. I don’t need anything gaudy or over-the-top, but some information on the front is necessary, isn’t it?

Thankfully, the images that Fleer used for these look great. But, I still would not mind an Orioles logo somewhere on the front along with Eddie’s name… That should be tagged as ‘Baseball Cards 101’.